NCC, RTÉ NSO/Proinnsías Ó Duinn, Gavin Maloney RTÉ lyric fm CD134 ****

This new CD is like an advance birthday present for John Kinsella, a one-time head of music at RTÉ, who will turn 80 next April. The often outgoing Sixth Symphony (1992-3) celebrates seven friendships through the use of seven horns, three of them placed outside the body of the orchestra. The less persuasive Seventh (1997), composed "with a keen awareness" of Sibelius's Seventh, has a wordless, distant choir at the end. Both pieces work best when the tightly motivic, agitated momentum, which Kinsella has made such a feature of his work, is in full flight. The straightforwardly programmatic Cuchulainn and Ferdia, Duel at the Ford (2008) was written for the NSO's celebration of its sixth decade. The most intriguing work is the busy, often mono-linear Prelude and Toccata (2006) for strings, originally for string quartet, a quiet firecracker of a piece. See url.ie/dgar